Overlay metrology is commonly used in manufacturing of microelectronic devices in order to verify that features formed by photolithography in successive thin film layers are properly aligned with one another. Overlay metrology systems and techniques that are known in the art measure the difference between the location of a feature in a given layer and its nominal location relative to a fiducial mark in a preceding patterned layer. Typically, the quality of lithographic image alignment is measured by creating special “targets” in each layer, and then determining how well a target on an upper (or overlay) level is centered with respect to a target on a lower level. Overlay metrology system known in the art use optical techniques to measure the distances and spaces between edges or boundaries of the upper and lower targets. Exemplary systems and targets for overlay metrology are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,167, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,453,002, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes the use of an X-ray microfluorescence analyzer to measure overlay errors between successive layers, such as metallization layers, that are created on a semiconductor wafer in the course of integrated circuit production. A test zone is created on the wafer, in which a pattern made of a metal element in a lower layer is overlaid by a substantially identical pattern made of a different element in an upper layer. When the layers are in proper registration, the pattern in the upper layer substantially shields the element in the lower layer from X-rays and prevents X-ray photons from the first element from reaching X-ray fluorescence detectors. When there is a registration error, however, a portion of the pattern in the lower layer is exposed to X-rays, so that photons from the first element can reach the detectors. A processing unit analyzes the intensity and direction of emission of these X-ray photons in order to determine the degree and direction of misregistration between the upper and lower layers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,556,652, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes X-ray measurement of critical dimensions. According to the method described in this patent, a surface of a substrate is irradiated with a beam of X-rays. A pattern of the X-rays scattered from the surface due to features formed on the surface is then detected and analyzed to measure a dimension of the features in a direction parallel to the surface.
Additional work on X-ray based CD measurements is described by Jones et al., in “Small Angle X-ray Scattering for Sub-100 nm Pattern Characterization,” Applied Physics Letters 83:19 (2003), pages 4059-4061, which is incorporated herein by reference. The authors use transmission-mode small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) with a synchrotron X-ray source to characterize a series of polymer photoresist gratings formed on a substrate. The X-ray beam passes through the grating and the substrate, and the SAXS pattern is measured using a two-dimensional CCD detector. The photoresist grating produces a one-dimensional series of diffraction spots in the SAXS pattern on the detector. The SAXS intensity as a function of the scattering vector q is analyzed to determine the grating spacing and sidewall angle.